surface tension
by maybe now
Summary: it binds them together as they resist the pressure to fall apart. collection of bellarke drabbles, as they form in my head. [2. slow burn: 'It started off, like most things between them, as innocent...']
1. nicknames

**title:** nickname

**pairing:** developing bellarke

**an:** I am obsessed with this pairing. I could not stop writing for it so I decided to hell with it, here's a drabble. will upload random bellarke drabbles here, probably. (un)fortunately I'm off to Paris sunday, so I don't know how much time I'm going to have to keep up the show (which is KILLING me I need more development between these two.) feel free to drop a review, I love hearing back.

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_surface tension_

Her words escaped her tiredly. "Don't even get started with me right now, Bell."

Clarke was exhausted. She and Bellamy had gone off on a scouting trip on the side of camp opposite the river, tentatively trying to determine how far they could venture safely to expand their hunting range. They hadn't run into any problems during the exploration, but after a full day of travel and staying on edge, prepared for any danger, had worn on Clarke and the last thing she needed was Bellamy's smart remarks, regardless of how, under normal circumstances, she enjoyed and was an equal participant in their banter.

The thought of all the responsibilities to be assumed back at camp once the pair of them, the two unspoken yet unchallenged leaders, returned, had soured her mood considerably.

She heard Bellamy's steps behind her pause for just a second, before crunching through the fallen leaves after her.

"Oh, so it's 'Bell' now."

She whipped her head around to catch the tail-end of his smirk, his eyes taking on that happy glint she's only seen when he's dead set on teasing her.

Clarke tossed a flinty glare at him before focusing back front, trying desperately to hide the sudden flush rising on her cheeks.

She hadn't meant to say it, it just… formed in her mouth, the syllable slipping out naturally.

Now, she just felt flustered. She hated when he did this. In their truce that had developed into a type of camaraderie that had recently morphed into something like friendship, this always seemed to happen: Clarke would get to a point where she was just starting to feel comfortable around him, in their partnership, and Bellamy would do something that threw her off, made her feel off-balanced yet again.

Early on, those moments would leave her nervous, a little wary. Now, the nerves were still present, but the hot feeling of blood rushing to her cheeks and the tensing of her stomach were new additions.

The worst part was she could never tell if anything ever affected him. Although her best shot at deciphering his true feelings were through his eyes, he managed to be elusive whenever she got curious and his face usually gave nothing away.

"Aw, Princess, don't be like that," he called out to her, and she _knew_ he was hardly even trying to hide the smugness from his voice.

"Whatever, Bellamy," she spat back, the venom in her tone an attempt to mask her embarrassment.

She increased her speed, wishing that if she focused hard enough the blush would fall from her face before Bellamy could catch wind of it.

That would simply be mortifying.

What had possessed her to let _Bell_ slip? She had only ever heard Octavia call him that.

"Princess!" he shouted, his pace quickening to catch up to her.

"Clarke!" he called when she didn't stop, his tone more serious.

Before she decide on a reply, a warm, large hand shot out and grabbed her right above an elbow, its pulling force spinning her to almost ram her nose directly into Bellamy's sternum.

Instead, his free hand grasped her opposite shoulder to prevent her from careening into his chest.

She huffed as his proximity essentially forced her to look up at him.

"It's not a big deal, Bellamy," she said exasperatedly, breaking their gaze to focus on the foliage over his broad shoulders.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," he replied, her eyes snapping back to meet his at the notably absent teasing in his voice.

Instead, the honey brown eyes she met were soft, smiling at her kindly.

The expression in his gaze and the slight upturned corners of his lips coupled with the warm sensation of his hands sliding slowly up and down her arms kicked the fight all out of her.

With an exhale, she felt herself deflate, posture sagging slightly into his hold.

Clarke rolled her eyes, the lack of menace in the action giving way to the closeted affection that simmered under the surface.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, lips curving in a tentative smile as he loosened his grip and they resumed heading back towards camp.

Clarke could still feel heat on the path his hands had taken on her arms, missed his nearness from when he stood so close in front of her.

They were silent for a few paces before Bellamy broke the quiet.

"Besides," he said, "I…" he hesitated when her quick glance to the side caught him staring.

A quick grin quirked his lips. "I liked it," he said with a shrug.

She couldn't fight the smile nor the blush that grew after hearing his words.

"Yeah?" she asked softly, peering up at him shyly beside him.

Bellamy dropped his gaze to the floor before he answered.

"Yeah," he said, the volume of his voice trailing off as the gate to their makeshift encampment appeared.

It was only as he stepped in front of her to haul back the large piece of scrap metal that acted as a gate that she noticed the light pink flush crawling up the back of his neck.


	2. slow burn

**title:** slow burn

**pairing:** bellarke

**an:** greetings from paris. I will go down with this ship, I love them. I can wait until next season. I can wait until a (potential) third season. my belief is strong. until then, give me fanfiction or give me death. and keep giving me bellarke interactions, oh dear show writers (and quiet denying bellarke is a thing, while you're at it).

until then, well. enjoy the update. let's get steamy.

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_surface tension_

It started off, like most things between them, as innocent. A show of support.

When the weight would feel like too much, Bellamy would somehow know and place his hand lightly on her shoulder, on the back of her neck. Gentle.

The first time it happened, Clarke had remained hyper-aware of the touch throughout their entire contact. There was nothing inappropriate, per say, about the interaction, and Bellamy had put a comforting hand on her shoulder before, but there had been no dying Finn then, just a quiet moment in between their day to day decisions.

And, like most things between them, neither acknowledged the change. When Clarke began to slowly reciprocate by resting her hand on his forearm when a particularly difficult problem crossed their path, and lightly placing her fingers on his shoulder when his eyebrows and lips drew down after failures, Bellamy didn't shrug off her touch.

It felt nice, she concluded, to have the security of another human's touch.

The heat she would feel, sometimes, after Bellamy's hand would weigh gently on her shoulder, had little to nothing to do with it.

Tonight, it had turned into something much different.

It was night after a particularly grueling day. Most of the remaining one hundred were drinking from Jasper's special store of alcohol. She had a few cap-fulls herself, earlier, a healthy buzz working through her tired muscles. She was never a loopy drunk, could never seem to fully let go of her mind. Looking around, she wondered if Bellamy's tolerance was the same.

She didn't know when she had started to feel like they shared so much in common.

She had come to realize that, as de facto leaders of their camp, Bellamy was the person she spent the most time with. Regardless, she didn't know where he was now, and she felt slightly off-kilter for it.

That was, until she felt a familiar presence come up behind her, her body curling slightly into the warmth of the taller, masculine body at her side. A hand slid softly up her spine, palm ending up splayed across the back of her neck.

The alcohol rendered her incapable of suppressing her body's reaction, the slight shiver followed the path his hand had just made in retrograde. Lately these touches—this touch in particular—had started to feel more and more possessive. A part of Clarke knew that not much in the act itself had changed—underneath the relatively new tension, she still felt the safety and security from his touch. There was just something more now, crackling between the two of them, broiling under the lid of their responsibilities.

It was one of those nights where words weren't necessary. She turned her head towards him, eyes catching, greeting him with a soft smile.

As a corner of his lips tilted up in response, she wondered if the drunk kids around them realized all they did for them. Even now, when they were supposed to be relaxing, she could see the mental exhaustion it took to run camp playing across his face.

"Princess," he finally said by way of greeting.

"Dictator," she replied lowly, but cheekily, earning an amused grin and exasperated headshake from Bellamy.

They lapsed into silence.

All of this was part of the new developing norm for her, for them. The pair of them stood on the outskirts of the bonfire, the light dancing and casting shadows across Bellamy's face whenever she daringly chanced a look at him.

Clare didn't think she could deny her attraction to him anymore.

It would be foolish to do anything about it, she had logically decided when the flares of her desire for him became recognizable a few days ago. For one, their people depended on them to make the big decisions, and becoming involved could potentially prevent them from making the most rational decision. And even though Bellamy had been regularly seeing a whole host of girls when they had first landed, it had become clear that he had no time for them now. After knowing him as she did now, she wouldn't want him that way anyways.

All of this thinking was fruitless, she decided, staring off at the flames. Instead, she tried to just focus on the comfort she felt from his presence, from his hand resting on her neck.

That was, until at that moment, slowly, the calloused fingers began to move.

Some twined in her hair, moving through the strands, causing gentle pressure on her scalp. She couldn't stop a small hum from leaving her chest, it just felt so good after the long day. Unconsciously, she leaned more into Bellamy's strong frame.

This was new.

It felt too wonderful to put her on edge, though.

The gesture was lulling her into relaxation, until, perhaps emboldened by her reaction or the alcohol, the pattern changed. His fingers began tracing maps onto the sensitive skin at her nape, stroking the lines of tension slowly, up and down, and any of the relaxation she felt swiftly coiled in on itself to morph into something more heady and infinitely more dangerous.

Because if he kept stroking her neck like that, without giving her anything more, she might combust and melt and freeze and turn to stone all at once.

She was scared to look at him, scared to see what his expression was, if his eyes were studying her as intently as it felt like, to see if the same feelings she was experiencing were mirrored back at her.

She was scared if she looked at him, he would stop.

She clenched her muscles where she stood, trying to withstand the teasing sensation brought forth by his touch, but to no avail.

She gave in. With a quiet moan, her head rolled back pushing her neck more firmly into his hand to lean back against his shoulder, her crown nestling under his chin.

She felt the hard planes of his chest tense behind her, hand stilling and flexing against her skin.

When had he gotten so close behind her? She didn't care.

The warmth buzzing through her veins (she had thought mostly due to the alcohol) flashed and scorched.

Finally, it was too much.

"Enough," she said, the words skating roughly through the gravel in her throat. She reached behind her head and grabbed his hand, bringing it down to their sides before turning into him.

His jaw flexed as he looked down at her, a whirlpool of emotions barely contained in his quickly darkening eyes.

The loud drunken chatter seemed to fade away as this thing between them reached almost unbearable heights. Bellamy's eyes were locked on hers, trying to read something, and she could just barely stop herself from throwing herself at him.

"Okay," he agreed, his voice resonating deeper than ever at their proximity and what she was asking.

What they were both giving in to.

The walk to his tent had never seemed longer. Bellamy had let go of her hand, instead his fingers burned through her shirt to sear at her skin on the small of her back as he guided her away from the prying eyes of the teens gathered around the fire.

Desire had not been a large part of her life prior to Earth, but she had never, not even with Finn, felt her body yearn for someone else's more than in this moment. Part of her felt embarrassed for how badly she wanted to rip his clothes off, to feel his skin against hers, to know what the solid weight of him pressing her down into the bed felt like. The other, larger, part of her knew that regardless she was going to demand jus that as soon as they were under the cover of his tent.

Unsurprisingly, they were on the same page. As soon as Bellamy closed the flap behind them, he spun her around so quickly she almost fell into him, his mouth immediately descending on hers desperately.

Clarke responded with just as much fervor, fingers skating erratically through his hair and to his shoulders, pressing into the steel covered skin of his chest, slipping down to his stomach.

When she began to press into the dips of his abs, the divots of his hips, he let out a low groan. His arms tightened, hands grasping tighter, and then she was in the air, her legs siphoning around his hips to keep her close to him.

And then she was on his bed, their kiss growing deeper as he held himself over her.

"Bellamy," she quietly moaned as his lips branded down her neck, nipping at her pulse point, and why was he holding himself over her, that was not what she wanted.

Bringing a leg to again wrap around his waist, she pulled him roughly down to lie entirely on top of her.

His ministrations stopped as he let out another groan, the hot air from his mouth trapped against her skin.

Letting out a moan, she dragged his head back up to hers.

His weight holding her down in the mattress felt better than she could have ever imagined, and she decided, for the first time in a while, that she would do something she wanted without hyper-analyzing the consequences.


End file.
